


you promised you'd be tesla but you're just another edison

by Cypherr



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Good Jschlatt, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Vilbur, Villain Wilbur Soot, idk i wrote this instead of working on my GRADED NaNoWriMo project for creative writing, look guys i'm projecting onto MCYTs for the third work in a row, maybe part 2 later if i feel like it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27430525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cypherr/pseuds/Cypherr
Summary: Tubbo is overwhelmed, but Schlatt comes to help-TW: self-harm (and blood), brief mention of suicidal thoughts-Title: Rat by Penelope Scott
Relationships: Jschlatt & Toby Smith | Tubbo
Comments: 12
Kudos: 460





	you promised you'd be tesla but you're just another edison

**Author's Note:**

> not me projecting onto MCYTs again for the third fucking time in a row  
> also, I'm not sure if this is even remotely coherent I did not proofread this at ALL  
> and uhh, lemme know if you'd like to see a part two to this (while I put off writing my already existing series lmao)

Tubbo wasn't supposed to let it get this far. He'd told himself 'just once', just once to get it out of his system. Told himself he could ride on the high the pain caused for a few days, and then he'd be fine. He didn't anticipate how quickly it would heal. So once turned into twice. And twice turned into now, sitting on the tiled floor of his bathroom with shaking hands and a bloody razor. He wasn't sure if it was helping anymore. He was too numb to feel the rush of adrenaline that usually accompanied the feeling of a sharp blade slicing cleanly through the fatty skin of his thighs. He wasn't even sure how long he had been there, alone and broken on the floor. All he knew was that most of the blood that had bulled in beads and ran down his flesh in small, red rivers was now tacky and dry, beginning to flake off in some places. 

Everything had just become so _much_ and he didn't even have the luxury of saying that it had just been recently. After the election, Wilbur had begun running him ragged to prove his loyalty. He hardly had time to sleep or eat between his job as secretary of state and his errands for Wilbur. He hadn't even gotten to see Tommy yet, and it'd been _months_. Wilbur had said that he could only see his best friend- his brother in all but blood- when he had proven his loyalty to Pogtopia. Wilbur, the man he would have followed to the ends of the earth, no longer looked at him with kind eyes and gentle smiles. Instead, it was barely constrained malice and grins that bordered on madness. The worst part was that Tubbo didn't know where he went _wrong_. Was he not a good spy? How had he presented himself as disloyal? He was exhausted in mind, body, and spirit and he was having a hard time convincing himself that continuing to live was worth it.

There was a knock on the door. His bathroom door.

"Tubbo?" That was Schlatt's voice. He wanted to call out, to say he was fine and to give him a minute ( a minute to clean up as best he could), but he couldn't bring himself to even open his mouth to try. He sat in petrified silence, razorblade slipping from his trembling grasp and clattering loudly against the cool tile, echoing in the quiet as if it were a bomb going off. The knock was more frantic this time, pounding rapidly in quick succession.

"Tubbo?" It was odd, hearing Schlatt's tone border on desperation. He was normally so composed, unshakeable, as if he were a brick wall, constructed from years of unwavering confidence. Tubbo still sat paralyzed, and he wasn't sure if it was from shock, fear, or the inherent, desperate need to _not be found_ (which, logically, he knew was dumb. Schlatt already knew he was in here.) He couldn't muster up enough courage to even turn around to face the door, and he had been so zoned out, wallowing in fear and self-pity, he wasn't sure when the ram hybrid had broken the door in. All he knew was that there were strong, warm arms around him and his face was pressed into an all too familiar suit. There was a hand in his hair, cold keratin shakily carding through his untamed brown locks, long from months of neglect.

"Fuck- Shit- I- Let's just- Let's get you cleaned up, okay Tubbs?" Why did he sound so _worried_? No one should be shaken up over the likes of him, He was just- he was just _Tu_ _bbo_ , an errand boy at best, worthless at worst. He nodded anyway, if only to please his president.

He felt Schlatt lean forward, reaching over him to grab a soft, damp rag. With empty eyes, he watched as the man carefully, if a bit wobbly, dragged the cloth over his marred thighs, gently clearing the area of the blood that had been dried there, sticking to his wounds and the yet to be marked bits in between. At some point, the man had begun to hum a soft tune, the soothing melody echoing slightly off the tiles, lulling him into a peaceful security. Tubbo leaned forward ever so slightly, resting his forehead against the older's firm chest, his steady heartbeat coaxing his eyelids closed. Schlatt felt _safe_ and oh how he had longed for this. Even if this wouldn't last, he'd relish in the moment for now. It had been so long since he'd had any kind of prolonged human contact.

Tubbo wasn't sure when everything had started to go downhill, because a traitorous voice that resided in the back of his mind whispered that it had begi=un long before the L'manburgian elections were held, but he wanted it all to _stop_. He wanted to lie under the stars with Tommy, and run through the flower fields with Sapnap, George, and Dream hot on his heels, laughing all the way. He wanted to tend to his bees and drink fresh lemonade, courtesy of BadBoyHalo, when the days were too hot to do anything besides relax in the shade or splash around in a lake. He wanted to- he wanted to be a kid again. Before the wars, before the betrayals, before the soul-crushing pain of being so _alone_. And it was all Wilbur's fault. Wilbur started the revolution, convinced them to fight for a freedom they'd already _had_. That was just the beginning of the slow descent into chaos and _agony_. He wasn't sure he could recall the last time he was able to be a kid. He was thirteen when Wilbur came to the server, Tommy only twelve, and they'd been drawn in by his charismatic personality and honeyed words. Thirteen when he'd gotten his first taste of real bloodshed, fighting and dying for a cause neither of them understood. He was nearly fifteen when the war had ended and they'd gotten their independence (it was wrong to call it freedom. Anything so oppressive could never be considered freedom.) They didn't win it. They didn't win _anything_. They were a nation in shambles because Tommy gave up _everything_ for it. Gave up everything he held dear for _Wilbur_.

"I don't wanna be a spy anymore." The words were so quiet he could almost convince himself he'd never said them at all, that those traitorous, awful words hadn't fallen from his lips and into reality. Be he'd said them, and now that he had them out in the open he couldn't stop the rest from tumbling out as well.

"I just wanted to see Tommy again but Wilbur, he-" he surprised himself with a sob. Tubbo wasn't sure he could remember the last time he had cried. There was no time to spare for a breakdown in the middle of a war, after all. How far he had fallen, sobbing his heart out in the arms of the man who was supposed to be his greatest enemy, taking comfort in the way hooved hands stroked his hair and rubbed small circles into his heaving back. he couldn't prevent the litany of apologies that fell from his tongue, most unintelligible (and why was he apologizing to the man who started this all? But he knew, whether he wanted to or not, that Schlatt was just the one who got Wilbur to show everyone the man he truly was underneath the later of deceptive charm and sugar-sweet promises. Wilbur was a siren, destined to drag everyone down into the murky depths of despair along with him. He wondered if Tommy had figured that out yet, or if he was still too enamored with the man he thought of as his savior.)

He felt so _secure_ , wrapped up in the sturdy grip of the hybrid, and he found that his thighs hurt, but not in the good, electric kind of hurt that brought a smile to his face and cleared his mind for the rest of the day. It hurt in the way that Wilbur's scathing quips hurt. In the way it hurt the first time Dream plunged a netherite sword through his sternum like he was made of butter and he no longer meant anything to the man he once saw as an older brother. In the way it hurt the first time he'd seen Tommy's dead body, lying cold and limp in the bloodstained grass, body stuck in the respawn process while the wounds littering his body in a vicious, sickening array slowly stitched themselves back together.

"I'll keep you safe, tubbo. I promise." And he couldn't help but nod along.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so behind on my NaNoWriMo goal rip me I hate this fucking class but I hope you enjoy this content I wrote instead  
> and also I'm baby raging 'cause my teacher said I have to press tab to indent my paragraphs :( but it's so ugly :(


End file.
